


Guilt

by CatieBrie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Horror, Prompt Fill, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 05:00:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3716029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatieBrie/pseuds/CatieBrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I hope you haven’t.  This will be so much worse if you have.”</p><p>“What will?”  John is drowning in the air now, sucking in liquid oxygen and it feels like fingers have pressed through the fleshy walls to pull at his clothes and skin. Blunt nails scrape and scrabble and now John is whimpering and trying to scream for Sherlock but his voice is lodged under the weight of his breath</p><p>“What’s left of your life, pet.” She laughs and laughs and laughs as John struggles and cries out in silent gasps of air  The sky has gone from bright to the green of the sick and all around the lip of his grave are new faces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> So I opened up prompts to fund 221b con and I've decided to post some of the longer ones here. You can find all of them [here](http://catie-brie.tumblr.com/tagged/221b%20fund)

It’s night but hardly dark out. The sky is free of clouds and it’s clear and bright and cold like that first layer of frost that comes to chase away the remnants of summer.  There’s no wind, just a still chill that’s easy enough to ward off with a thin jacket.

John forgot his. Or, more accurately, John was pulled out of the flat before he could check his phone for the weather and he is now standing in the middle of a shoddy cemetery while Sherlock prowls around the crumbling headstones like some great winged beast in his fluttering belstaff.

“Want to tell me why we’re here?” John says after several moments have passed in tense silence.  

“There’s been rumor of a witch.” Sherlock jackknifes up and spins around so that he now faces John.  He looks manic in his delight.

“A witch,” John deadpans.

“Yes, a witch!” Sherlock fishes around the pockets of his coat and pulls out his phone.  “Graham–”

“Greg.”

“ _Lestrade_ sent me the case, it’s delightful.” He passes the phone over to John who takes it in his frozen fingers. The screen is a red mess, intestines strung out in neat patterns around the gored torso of what John thinks is a young man. John almost gags. 

“You’re mental.” John tries to hand the phone back to Sherlock but Sherlock shakes his head and swipes his thumb across the screen. This time it’s a close up of a young girl‘s face, first and second fingers of her hands knuckle deep in the mangled mess of her eye sockets. Her face is split wide in a smile around teeth orthodontic-dream-straight-and-white. “ _Jesus_.” 

“Lestrade says is the works of a cult.  From what they have found out it’s centered around a woman who stalks around graveyards.  No one is willing to talk to the police–-not that I blame them–-and the last kid who did talk lost his mind and bit through his tongue.  I watched the tape, there was a marked change in demeanor before he offed himself, like he was seeing something in the back of the interview room.”

“Drugs?”

“None in the toxicology report.” 

John can tell Sherlock is trying to keep his expression serious, but his eyes are too bright and wild to hide his excitement.  John looks heavenward, both fond and disturbed by his friend.

“And we’re rooting around a cemetery because?”

“It’s the last bit of information they squeezed out of the kid before he changed. They performed some sort of necromantic rituals here.”

“Ah, wonderful,” John says.  He’s all but acclimatised to the cold air by now so when his body jolts with a violent spell of tremors he nearly bites through his cheek.  When he settles every hair not held to his body by clothing is standing on edge.

“You cannot possibly be that cold.”  

John doesn’t answer. Something’s triggered his fight or flight instinct and he’s too busy scouring the broken ground and its rows of headstone teeth to pay much attention to Sherlock.

“John?”

“Hush.”

He does. Surprising, that, but John’s now certain they are being watched and the frustration of not being able to find the source is singing along the surface of his skin.

He knows they should leave now, he doesn’t know how he will convince Sherlock of that, but he _knows_ staying is not an option. 

And of course that’s when the ground beneath him crumbles apart and swallows him whole.

\--

One of the perks of following Sherlock around is the adventure. Most days John is delighted by it, but tonight? Tonight he’d rather kill the man that’s got him trapped in what seems to be a collapsed grave. 

“Are you alright, John?” Sherlock is peering down at him from just a bit more than six feet up. 

“What do you think?” John tries to sit up and feels a sharp sting in his arm. He curses and reaches around to sooth the pain, fingers brushing against something glass that’s lodged in the flesh there. He feels warmth soaking through his jeans and he’s aware of the copper tang of blood heavy in the air. Panic hits his blood stream like a drug and it takes every ounce of will power not to thrash about. 

“Sherlock?”

“Yes?” 

“Get me the fuck out of here!”

“Can you move?”

“No, there’s glass, I’ve already cut myself pretty bad.” John only feels the pain in his arm, but the wet heat coating the underside of his trousers makes him worry that there’s more. 

“I’ll call Lestrade.”  Sherlock fiddles with his phone a moment before furrowing his brow and moving away from the mouth of the hole.  John twitches and feels like screaming but he manages to hold mostly still. Something empty has settled at the back of his brain, something hollow and pulsing and he feels dull around the edges. 

Sherlock comes back a moment later looking worried. “I don’t have service.”

“Hmmm.”  John hums but he’s not paying much attention now, the world has taken on the pulse of his brain and he feels terribly warm.  

“Will you be alright if I walk out further?”

“Yeah, yeah.”  The walls are heating around him, soft dirt taking on the consistency of freshly parted flesh. They roll and undulate against him like a heart beating and he thinks he should be screaming but he can’t. Or he won’t–-it is nice and warm and a break from the cool autumn air.

Sherlock hesitates for a moment before leaving John alone in his pit.

It doesn’t take long before John sees another face. She’s pretty, young in the way that seems timeless and has skin so dark it pales the night sky. She smiles with quaintly crooked teeth and John is afraid.

“Have you seen much death?”

“What?”  John’s having trouble concentrating. The air around him has become humid and slick in his lungs. The question is strange.

“You look like you have.  The others had only seen a little, you know. Just a parent or grandparent or pet.  That poor girl killed her brother. Just ran him over in the driveway when he came out to greet her. Of course she was proper pissed and probably didn’t know any better-–but that guilt killed her.  What about you, child?”

John has to wonder how far out Sherlock must have walked for this woman to get so close. 

“I hope you haven’t.  This will be so much worse if you have.”

“What will?”  John is drowning in the air now, sucking in liquid oxygen and it feels like fingers have pressed through the fleshy walls to pull at his clothes and skin. Blunt nails scrape and scrabble and now John is whimpering and trying to scream for Sherlock but his voice is lodged under the weight of his breath.

“What’s left of your life, pet.” She laughs and laughs and laughs as John struggles and cries out in silent gasps of air  The sky has gone from bright to the green of the sick and all around the lip of his grave are new faces. 

He recognizes them. Every one of them a man or woman that has died at his hand.

The woman crawls away still laughing and leaves John with his mistakes and his victories alike.

They say nothing as they melt and bleed into each other, grey masses with bloodied faces and punctured skin and cruel eyes. They crowd in so close that John can’t see the poisoned sky anymore, just the shadow forms with bright, bright glares.  He squirms and the ground beneath him shifts and rocks like liquid, the smell of copper so cloying now he feels coated in metal.

“Sherlock?” He tries to scream it but all that comes out is a wet croak and suddenly he _is_ drowning and he’s certain the last thing he will ever see are the eyes of the men and women who have haunted his dreams for as long as he can remember.

–-

John wakes in a hospital bed with one leg heavy in a plaster cast and his arms nearly white with bandages.  All the colors are off when he opens his eyes, but he can breath again and only a bit of something metallic settles at the back of his tongue.  He tries to speak but it comes out as a rasp.

“John!” Sherlock is at his side in an instant and John is surprised to see a days worth of stubble on his normally clean-shaven friend.  He has a glass in his hand and John reaches for it greedily, even as he feels the bandages shift and upset forming scabs. Red stains the white but at least he has water.

Then the night rushed back to him and he’s choking on the liquid in his throat as he almost screams.

“John, it’s okay, you’re okay,” Sherlock says, trying to sound reassuring but not quite hitting the mark. John finds that comforting in its own way and calms.  

Something shifts at his peripheral but he ignores it in favor of asking “what happened?

“You lost a lot of blood when you fell. There was glass and bone everywhere at the bottom of that grave and you hit most of it.”

“There was a woman.”

“No there wasn’t.” 

“No, there was.  She asked me about how much death I’ve seen or something.”

“John, I was there the whole time and didn’t see a woman.”

“You went to find a spot that’d have mobile service, it must have been then.” He catches movement in the corner of his eye again but when he turns to chase the source there is nothing there.

“I was watching the whole time.”

“But the–-” John is about to say ghosts but thinks better of it. “–-never mind, it had to have been a hallucination." He gives a little nod as if trying to convince himself. "Yeah, from the blood loss.”

“Yes, it must have been.” Sherlock looks skeptical for a moment before perking up a bit.  “You need to rest–-I can’t continue hunting this witch without your help, you know!”

“Oh no,” John says, panic already starting to form beneath his breast bone. “I’m done with this-–no more graveyards for awhile.”

“But John-–”  John’s not listening anymore. John‘s breath is now tight and trapped in his chest and he almost starts screaming again. Behind Sherlock the dead have started to form from the shadows–translucent specters watching him with those bright eyes from before.

John rolls his eyes to the ceiling and takes deep breaths until he’s reigned his heartbeat back in. 

“John, are you alright?”

The figures are gone leaving only the niggling feeling that he is being watched behind. “Yeah, fine.”

“Your heartrate.”

“Totally fine.”

“You should sleep.”  And that sets John off–-he just starts laughing, can’t stop it as it ramps into hysterics.  He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to sleep again.

And he hardly ever does.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://catie-brie.tumblr.com/) where I love to answer questions, comments, chats or just have you as a friendly stalker. It's also where I periodically post about fanfic I am working on.


End file.
